Who We Really Are

Who We Really Are

  In the novel, The Strange Case of Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde, author Robert Louis Stevenson emphasizes the good and evil sides of Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde. Even though he is at first excited about being able to change into Hyde, he is later in agony as the evil side takes over. In people’s view Dr. Jekyll is a nice and perfect man, but in reality he is partly a violent and cruel person. Dr. Jekyll is scared of showing his dark side to people, because he fears they will spurn him. Therefore, he creates Mr. Hyde and he enjoys being Mr. Hyde’s because he can do everything he wants in Mr. Hyde body. But, since Hyde’s actions are not accepted by society, Dr. Jekyll must kill himself in order to restore his good name. Stevenson ultimately shows that in order to be accepted by society, we must keep our deepest desires in check, even if this means holding back who we really are.

 Dr. Jekyll is a knowledgeable, respected celebrity with extraordinary ability in London. At the start of the novel, Stevenson shows us a perfect man, Dr. Jekyll: “And the person that drew the cheque is the very pink of proprieties, celebrated too, and (what makes it worse) one of your fellows who do what they call good” (5). During the novel, Dr. Jekyll enjoys being Mr. Hyde, but he still has a conscience, Stevenson describes how Jekyll feels “and I began to spy a danger that, if this were much prolonged, the balance of my nature might be permanently overthrown, the power of voluntary change be forfeited, and the character of Edward Hyde become irrevocably mine”(60). Dr. Jekyll knows he can’t control Mr. Hyde anymore. If he still drinks the poison belong to Mr. Hyde he won’t came back to Dr. Jekyll. Even though he enjoys transferring to Mr. Hyde, he kills himself if because Dr. Jekyll is conscience is so strong that he is willing to destroy himself to get rid of his dark side. At first I despised Dr. Jekyll because he escaped from the reality and used Mr. Hyde to hide his crime, but in the end he confess everything, it makes me feel very surprised and then I admired him. Not everyone in the face of his evil side can overcome it; he is a brave man.

  Everybody detests a person like Mr. Hyde, but in my opinion Mr. Hyde is a pitiful person more than a hateful one. There is a sentence in China, “Poor people must be of the hateful.” But I think for Mr. Hyde is “Hateful people must be of the poor.” Mr. Hyde is a cruel person and sloppy. In society there are many people like Mr. Hyde, some are truly evil, but others just act bad to protect themselves. In the article “Creating the False Self”, author Harville Hendrix talk about how children create a “false-self” and show it to their family and friends. They create a false self to protect themselves from getting hurt by others. Dr. Jekyll created Mr. Hyde, his evil side, to do those bad things. By doing this he is protecting his good side and his honor. I said Mr. Hyde is a poor person because all the evil side of Dr. Jekyll is on him when he is create by Dr. Jekyll, so he has no choice. He trampled the young girl and murdered Carew like a puppet controlled by Dr. Jekyll. In the end, Dr. Jekyll felt Hyde was out of control, so he killed him. In this way, Hyde is a person to be pitied.

   Nobody wants to show their evil side to people, nobody want to have an evil side, we cannot express our evil side, because we need to live in this society, need to earn money, need to protect ourselves, so we create a “false-self”, our shadows. On the one hand we can protect ourselves, hide our real emotions. On the other hand, we can do hard those things that we want which are not accepted by society. I heard a sentence like that “when people see good, they expect good. And I don't want to have to live up to anyone's expectations.” Dr. Jekyll in people’s view is a perfect person. People can’t accept that he makes mistakes or does something wrong; therefore, Dr. Jekyll, in order to keep his perfect reputation alive in people’s expectations he created Mr. Hyde. But who are we? We live in a society or family and friend’s expectations? Why do we need to hide our real emotions to become a masked man? I don’t like people who want fame and wealth and fake like they are good man. That makes me disgusted; I don't have to do something just to fit in. But in fact the truth is we must keep our deepest desires in check, even if this means holding back who we really are. In the novel The Strange Case of Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde, I admire Dr. Jekyll but also very sympathetic to him, because he needs to secret his desires for keep fame and wealth, so he lives in a mask to be a good man. For Mr. Hyde I appreciate and also pity him. I appreciate he for he can do those things he wants. Even though something is bad, I pity him because he has an evil side and cannot be accepted by society.

  The ending of the story of Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde makes me so sad. Dr. Jekyll drank a potion, and then changed himself into an evil man. He hovered between good and evil all day long and his guilty feelings always tortured himself. Finally, he can’t bear the condemnation from his heart, so he takes poison to commit suicide. Actually, we all are people like Dr. Jekyll, everyone has the evil side. We just can control ourselves; we have a rational mind to judge right and wrong. Our thinking dominates our behavior to do the things that are right. But sometimes, we also need a method to release emotions, and we need to choose a way that is correct and appropriate. If not, we will also become like Dr. Jekyll, and feel repentant in our lifetime. We need keep sober and have a clear-head to make sure who we are.

Works Cited

Hendrix, Haville. "Creating the False Self." Meeting the Shadow: The Hidden Power of the Dark Side of Human Nature. Eds. Connie Zweig and Jeremiah Abrams. New York: Penguin, 1991. 49-52. Print.

Stevenson, Robert Louis. The Strange Case of Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde. New York, NY: W.W. Norton &, 2003. Print.